nothing but flowers

I don't know which stage of a cold is the worst.

Stage 1: Oh, crap, I'm getting sick. At this point I drink lots of juice and water and take vitamin C, even though I bet that by the time I have symptoms I can't avoid getting sick.

Stage 2: SLEEP. ACHE! SNIFFLE. This one's not so bad, because I can sleep anywhere, anytime, and for an insomniac like me that's a luxury even with the achiness and sniffles.

Stage 3: Fine from the neck down, bud dalkin lik dis frum neck ub.

Stage 4, the one I'm in right now: Fine from the neck down, but sneezing every 5 seconds and leaking just about everywhere from the neck up as the fluids of sickness try to escape. The stage in which you blow your nose and both your ears make noises like unto imminent apocalypse.

***

I dreamed again that I was married to Kevin Whelan.

He'd better get a move on if he wants those three kids.

Which is the better way to live one's life: by cherishing a dream—say, the dream that I might someday find someone to fall in love with—or to admit defeat and give up?

I feel I've given the first option more than a fair try. I've kept my eyes open. I've tried to be in places where I might meet someone interesting. I've read the damn books with the titles like Dreaming the Life You Desire and visualized my little heart out. I've sat in the circle of hell that is the southern bar and watched drunken frat boys abuse the elevated handslap. I've descended into the special pit of hell that is online dating, where grammar goes to die and no one is even in the same zip code as remotely acceptable. I've gotten excited when I've met someone who seems like he could be right, and I've gone from feeling actual sadness when it doesn't work out to feeling pretty much nothing at all. Lately I don't even get as far as thinking someone might be right.

Despite this being the sort of attitude the universe is supposed to love contradicting, The Boy For Me has failed to appear.

He has failed to appear so steadfastly and for so long that at this point, if he does exist, I'm kind of pissed at him. "Fuck you," I want to say to him. "Fuck you for not showing up when just a little extra income in my household would have been enough to let me stay in my favorite city in the world. Fuck you for not being there when I was in despair because I had screwed up and needed someone to help me and comfort me. Fuck you for letting me down."

The romantic in me sometimes still insists he'll be here Any Second Now. "Hang in there," she says. "Keep living your life the best you can, and when you're both ready, there you'll be in the same place." But I'm becoming more and more certain that the last few years have been the world hitting me on the head with a baseball bat saying, "Nobody's coming, nobody's coming."

Which is worse: false hope, or no hope?